In the last 30 or so years, the jobs market and employment landscape have changed significantly.
With the increased digitalization of business, growth of automation and the trend towards Artificial Intelligence (AI) in everything from the traditional office to manufacturing and production, the need for many long-standing, traditionally secure jobs is decreasing rapidly.
Computers and tech are changing all facets of our modern lives – everything from how we communicate to how we shop and, of course, how (and where) we work. Moving forward, some careers are forecast to have significantly more security than others – for example, working in computer-related disciplines – where having some degree of IT literacy or cloud computing experience like Azure learning will help.
However, in our rapidly changing world, all prospective employees will likely need to diversify their skills in the future – particularly if you work in any of these quickly disappearing jobs.
Travel agent
With the seemingly unstoppable growth in popularity of web-based travel services and holiday providers, the prospects for traditional travel agents look particularly bleak. While once it was the norm to go to a specialist agent to organize a holiday or short break, these days the world is at consumers’ fingertips and it’s now possible to arrange entire trips online – everything from flights to accommodation and even specialist activities. Travel firms used to rely on taking a mark-up from their providers but, in today’s connected world, suppliers can reach out directly to their consumers via websites and social media.
Cashier
The world has been moving slowly towards a cashless society for many years. However, the recent coronavirus pandemic and knock-on fear of touching paper money have sped up the shift considerably. In retail terms alone, it’s suggested COVID-19 accelerated the acceptance and use of online shopping by as much as four to six years – and the trend for purchasing digitally goes far beyond just e-com sites. Automated terminals are now commonplace in most supermarkets and even your local McDonald’s will likely now feature self-serve, cashless terminals. If you work any form of cashier role – from bank teller to shop assistant – you’d be best thinking about a change of career soon.But other experts in the industry such as those at Rednax recruitment disagree and say that is not the case. While online shopping is becoming more mainstream, retail assistants are having the job descriptions altered. Face to face time is reducing, but it is being replaced by more phone enquiries and online order packaging dispatching.
Fast-food chef
On the subject of McDonald’s, industry experts suggest the art of flipping burgers and preparing other forms of fast food could soon be put in the hands of AI bots. AI and machines are particularly adept at handling repetitive, time-consuming tasks – exactly the type of work involved in producing like-for-like, formula-based fast food. In the future, you could very well place your order at an automated terminal and have your food prepared and delivered by a machine.
Jobs in the print industry
Printing has been on the decrease for many years and with traditional hardback books moving to Kindle-type e-publishing and the ongoing demise of the newspaper industry, prospects in the print industry look far from good. It’s perhaps inevitable when you consider millennials prefer to source their media from less mainstream sources while the idea of waiting until tomorrow for news that happened today seems almost ludicrous in the world of social media and on-demand, immediate publishing.